How to get our blue mailboxes back?

January 24, 2021 1:59 PM

I live in Redmond, WA, and right before the the US election, a LOT of the shared blue mailboxes around town were taken away. How can we get them back?

It doesn't help that the Redmond post office is awful, with no one answering the phones, or if you do get through to someone, getting the runaround for months.
How best can I organize and apply pressure?

posted by evilmonk to Law & Government (2 answers total)

Best answer: Write all of your elected officials and to the postmaster. Resistbot can help you with this because you give it your address and it finds all the people and their fax numbers. It may not seem like your mayor will take action, but they might. And a pile of faxes for Louis DeJoy would just warm my heart, maybe whoever takes over after him will take action.

Here's the Resistbot usage guide which has a handy list of keywords that you can use.

Make sure to indicate in your communication that you are a voter, they really do care about that and not at all who you voted for.

I get replies from most of the representatives I send letters to this way.

You can share your letter with other people by text, twitter, facebook, and have them send them as well. The more voters contacting an official, the more they pay attention. (I have a list of issues that I am working through, contacting the appropriate officials with one a day)
posted by bilabial at 2:11 PM on January 24, 2021 [10 favorites]

Seriously, the blue mailboxes are money sinks if they aren't used enough. The USPS is paying someone, every day (except Sunday, most likely) to stop by, unlock the box, and unload what is inside. I'd be willing to bet the ones you are referencing just weren't very busy, so they were decommissioned. You can try contacting an elected official, but the USPS is the entity that makes the decision, so the postmaster would be the best bet. At least they can give you on why/if the boxes are completely dead.
posted by tacodave at 5:59 PM on January 25, 2021